This invention relates to mounting electronic components on circuit boards.
In one approach to mounting an electronic component on a circuit board, shown in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/552,522, filed Nov. 6, 1995, the board has a hole that is large enough to accommodate the body of the component. Connection pads located on the surface of the board near the periphery of the hole are soldered to conductors that lie on the body of the component. Because the component lies partly in the hole, the component does not project above or below the hole as far as it would if it were mounted on the surface of a board that had no hole. The finished circuit board assembly, including the components, then may be thinner.
The invention enables a component to be mounted in any selected position within a range of positions along a direction perpendicular to the board.
Thus, in general, in one aspect, the invention features apparatus for mounting an electronic component on a circuit board. The board has a hole that is large enough to accommodate a portion of the component. Contacts are arranged along a side wall of the accommodated portion of the component. Other contacts are mounted on the board and exposed along the periphery of the hole. The contacts on the component (the first contacts) and the contacts on the board (the second contacts) are arranged to effect electrical contact between the first contacts and the second contacts for a range of positions of the component along a direction perpendicular to the board.
Implementations of the invention may include one or more of the following features. A mounting mechanism fixes the component in a selected one of the positions. The mounting mechanism includes a portion of the component that is not accommodated by the hole, e.g., a heat sink. The mounting mechanism includes spacers.
The second contacts include compliant pins. The first contacts include terminals having surfaces that extend along the direction perpendicular to the board. The second contacts are arranged along two opposite edges of the hole and are soldered to the pads on the board. The pins are compliant in a direction parallel to a surface of the board.
In general, in another aspect, the invention features a connector for making electrical connection from a circuit board to first contacts on a component mounted on the board. The connector includes second contacts, a connector body supporting the second contacts in a manner that provides mechanically compliant sliding contact between the first contacts and the second contacts when the component is mounted, and a mechanism that enables the connector to be attached to the board by surface mount soldering.
Implementations of the invention may include one or more of the following features. The mechanism includes a solderable clip that engages the connector body and is solderable to a pad on the board. The connector has a wall configured to engage a periphery of a hole in the board that accommodates the component. The second contacts include prongs that are solderable to pads on the board to connect the component to a circuit on the board. The second contacts include pins that are force fitted into holes in the connector body. The second contacts include compliant fingers that extend away from the connector body.
The extent to which the component projects above or below the board can be easily adjusted. This allows different components having different heights to be accommodated on a common version of a circuit board. It also allows units of a given component to be mounted on different boards at different positions to match the different heights of other components mounted on the respective boards.
The connectors can be mounted using the same surface mount soldering steps that are used to solder other surface mounted components to the board.
Other advantages and features will become apparent from the following description and from the claims.